This watchdog blog, by journalist Norman Oder, offers analysis, commentary, and reportage about the $4.9 billion project to build the Barclays Center arena and 16 high-rise buildings at a crucial site in Brooklyn. Dubbed Atlantic Yards by developer Forest City Ratner in 2003, it was rebranded Pacific Park in 2014 after the Chinese government-owned Greenland Group bought a 70% stake in 15 towers. New York State still calls it Atlantic Yards. Contact: AtlanticYardsReport[at]hotmail.com

They say the narrow sidewalks in a residential neighborhood will make the crowding problem worse than around an arena like Madison Square Garden. The report found that half of the sidewalks have less than the eight feet of clear space than city rules call for in commercial areas.
“There’s a safety issue...Pedestrians are going to walk in the roads,” [Peter] Krashes said. “When you put too much demand for the same space on the sidewalk, it just makes it less safe and less desirable to be there.”

Based on what I saw when I last attended a Nets game in Newark, people eagerly used the streets.

State says all's fine

The state maintains everything's OK:

Arana Hankin, Atlantic Yards director for the Empire State Development Corporation, said the agency’s consultants recently analyzed sidewalks around the arena site. “The analysis determined that pedestrian conditions operate at acceptable levels of service,” she said.

The Daily News ended its article with quotes from one resident who fears chaos, and another who said "They'll take care of it." That's kind of what Jay Rosen calls the "View from Nowhere," the false middle, the inability to do any analysis. suggesting each opinion was of equal value, though the evidence suggests otherwise.

What could be done? Well, at the next Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet meeting, scheduled for May 3, perhaps an elected official or two will ask some hard questions.